Systems for controlling the operation of equipment located in a plurality of zones are known. In the case of audio-visual (“AV”) equipment, such as television sets (“TVs”) located in different zones of a location, such as different rooms of a building (e.g., a domestic house), the operation of such AV equipment has been effected by analogue signals employing an 8×8 matrix of audio-visual delivery with infrared (“IR”) resend from each room to a central control location from where all the source data is derived. The provision of source data at the central location is from known source devices such as DVD, CD, Satellite, MP3, and other known devices. All the cabling of these systems must link each item of AV equipment to the central location. As a result, such known systems involve a considerable amount of cabling. Moreover, such cabling requires adaption of the building, if the cabling is not to be unsightly and/or the cabling must be installed via holes drilled through walls to connect the central location to each piece of AV equipment. These known systems are consequently relatively expensive.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a device and system that is an improvement compared to known devices and systems and/or which mitigates the drawbacks of such known devices and systems.